Aircraft Carriers II (Closed to posting)

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chuck731

Banned Idiot
Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

Oh, hogwash, Chuck.

Pretty much all military naval vessels have variances and incongruities when viewed close up at various portions along their hulls and superstructures. Including US vessels. But these are not a hinderance or an issue.

.....

As one who has been personally involved in the past, and carefully watched naval vessels for over 30 years, I am telling you that the bow of the Vikrant looks pretty good from a military vessels perspective.

And it is certainly bears no resemblance to your statement that they were, "hammered in place by hand."

As someone who has also been involved and has watched vessels being built in docks since the late 1970s, I can say you are comparing apples and oranges when you show slight unevenness in plates resulting from weld cooling or the noticeable dishing of plates between frames that proliforates when ships have been in service for a while and have plowed through their share of waves and equate them with the considerable uneveness of surface curvature in both direction on the brand new Vikrant's ramp sides, which could only resulting from very slack fabrication standard. The sides of the ramp show several fabrication sins. One, the curvature of the ramp side does not appear to vary smoothly in either direction. This suggest the frames underneath aren't cut very precisely, or the plates were shaped poorly and not welded to the frames. Two, the sides do not seem to fair evenly and smoothly into the ramp top. It's not clear to me how this can come about, except also the frames for the sides didn't fit the shape of the ramp. I have to say unless shadows and paint textures are playing very severe tricks on me, the sides of vikrant's ramp look to be the most crude piece of fabrication I've ever seen on the outside of a ship from a major modern yard. Only comparably crude pieces of fabrication I saw on outsides of ships were on products of small to medium sized inland riverine yards in third world countries in the 1970s and 1980s.

I agree the bow of Vikrant between the waterline and maybe 10 feet below the ramp look as good as what would be expected on a large ship with relatively sumple hull shape produces by a major modern yard. But I think the standard of fabrication of the outside of the main hull tell less about how well the innards of a carrier built innthis yard will go together than standard of fabrication of specialty parts with relatively small diameter compound curves.

A
 
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Jeff Head

General
Registered Member

[video=youtube;8K50UVd-cdo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K50UVd-cdo[/video]

Absolutely LOVE this video!

We are looking at a commissioned USS Wasp operating an in-service, US Marine active Squadron aircraft off of her deck.

Not a prototype, not a manufacturer's test aircraft...but an in service US Marine aircraft.

The F-35B is going to add a huge new dimension to US Navy Amphibious Assault carriers and a lot of worry to any adversary.
 

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
Great video Jeff. Brings a question to mind.. How much of a load can an F-35B take off with? I did notice that the aircraft was air borne before she reached the bow. And I do realize the aircraft has a light load..just fuel.
 
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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Don;t forget pop's F35 has internal carriage. that means she can look clean but hide 1500lb's of venom, except for her gun pod ( which for the marines and navy have to be external) the video bird could have a air defense load and we would not know about it unless the pilot decided let us in on it.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Great video Jeff. Brings a question to mind.. How much of a load can an F-35B take off with? I did notice that the aircraft was air borne before she reached the bow. And I do realize the aircraft has a light load..just fuel.
The plan for the F-35B is for it, with a full run off of a WASP or AMERICA, to be able to take off with a full combat load, internal and external...with full fuel.

Clearly, the heavier she is, and the more initial vertical lift she has to employ, the more fuel she will use. But she can be refueled if necessary too.
 
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asif iqbal

Lieutenant General

[video=youtube;8K50UVd-cdo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K50UVd-cdo[/video]

Absolutely LOVE this video!

We are looking at a commissioned USS Wasp operating an in-service, US Marine active Squadron aircraft off of her deck.

Not a prototype, not a manufacturer's test aircraft...but an in service US Marine aircraft.

The F-35B is going to add a huge new dimension to US Navy Amphibious Assault carriers and a lot of worry to any adversary.

Yes and I am sure the Royal Navy is taking notes here if not already on board

Royal Navy are experts with these kind of configuration, depending on the scope of the missions they can use vertical take off or ship borne rolling vertical landing

Actually it's quite complicated because a team of logistical experts needs to establish what load configurations need to be lifted which then dictates the type of landing and take off to be performed

The load configurations in turn depends on the threat level and nature, so the whole thing has to be established for a whole range of scenarios in minimum time

But the Royal Navy can pull on decades of Harrier experience and skills that have been pioneered during that time, the difference is this time they are dealing with a super sonic 5th generation aircraft

The rolling take off has benefits since it can lift more and causes less strain on the engine, vertical lift requires huge power requirements which drain the overall lifetime of the engine the turn around time also decreases, rolling take off it's also not too harsh on the flight deck due to less heat laying down on the deck

And due to operating the F35B the Royal Navy will be able to "surge" two carrier battle groups simultaneously, something they could not achieve with F35C, so overall in terms of capability F35B is not a bad choice of aircraft for the scope of Royal Navy missions
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Yes and I am sure the Royal Navy is taking notes here if not already on board

Royal Navy are experts with these kind of configuration, depending on the scope of the missions they can use vertical take off or ship borne rolling vertical landing

The Royal Navy can pull on decades of Harrier experience and skills that have been pioneered during that time, the difference is this time they are dealing with a super sonic 5th generation aircraft
Some interesting notes about overall Harrier operations.

The UK developed two versions.

The first was the Harrier for the Air Force, the GR.1 (which was upgraded to the GR.3) of which a total of about 150 were built (including the trainer version) which became operational in 1969. The Royal Air Force operated Harriers of one type or another for 41 years.

The second was the Sea Harrier, FRS.1 (which became the FA.2) for the Navy (which was also used by the US Marines at first as the AV-8B and the Indian Navy) of which a total of 56 were built which became operational in 1979. The Royal Navy operated Sea Harriers of one type or another for 31 years.
'
The Indian Navy also built 30 FRS.51, which were very similar to the UKs FRS.1. They were delivered in 1983 and became operational in 1984. the Indians have been operating Harriers now off of two carriers for 30 years. The initial 10 Matadors for Spain were built to the FRS.1 standard. And then, the US adopted the Harrier and 110 AV-8As were built for the US Marines. So, the UK built a total of about 360 Harriers for its use and that of three allies.

The US adopted the Harrier from the British Navy Sea Harrier for use on its large Amphibious Assault Carriers. To begin with, as stated, the US had 110 AV-8A harriers built, which were from the FRS.1 design. But in use, the US Marines came up with a number of very innovative design and other upgrades and changes. A deal was worked out with the UK to build the new AV-8B (which was upgraded and built new as the AV-8B II+ in the US, Spain and Italy) by McDonald Douglas. The AV-8B became operational in January 1984. The US, Italy, and Spain all use the AV-8B. A total of about 350 of these were built. Then, in one of those historical quirks, the UK, who had sent the initial Harrier design to the US, then also adopted the new US design. This was ultimately built and used by the UK for both Air Force and Navy in the later years. About 150 of those were built. So, all in all, about 500 Harrier IIs were built and the US still uses close to 200 of them for operations, training and tests, the Italians have about 30, and the Spanish about 20.

With the Harrier IIs operating off of 10+ US Tarawa and Wasp Class vessels for the last 30 years, the US has actually now logged far more time with the Harrier than the British.

While the Harrier II+ is an improved version with a lot of US input (and specifically US Marine input) the critical design is British and the fact that the US adopted that aircraft and has used it so extensively (which is not a normal practice for the US military) is just a further testament of the unbelievably good design it has been.

And now you know...the rest of the story.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Re: PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme..News & Views

I can say you are comparing apples and oranges when you show slight unevenness in plates resulting from weld cooling or the noticeable dishing of plates between frames that proliforates when ships have been in service for a while and have plowed through their share of waves and equate them with the considerable uneveness of surface curvature in both direction on the brand new Vikrant's ramp sides, which could only resulting from very slack fabrication standard.
Other posters: Sorry for the OT, but I needed to respond to Chuck.

Chuck, several of those pictures I posted earlier were of brand new construction themselves, so again, you are making presumptions and then go off commenting based on those presumptions when the presumption was faulty to begin with.

Listen, you can say whatever you want...it's a public forum. My issue with you was simple, and had nothing to do with all the directions you are trying to turn the discussion now.

You said that the plating on the Indian Carrier (when looking at the bow particularly) looked like it had been hammered into place by hand. I called that hogwash and still do.


vikrant-005.jpg


As I said, that is just plain hogwash and represent a completely slanted, unreasoned statement (most probably based on a pre-conceived negative bias of the Indians themselves)...which is why I responded as I did. They may have inferior methods to some of the really modern facilities...but I do not believe they are as far behind as you presume.

One thing I know for sure, they did not have blokes up there on scaffolding using sledges to hammer those plates in place and form them...which is what this discussion was about from the get go.
 
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